


Mistaken Identity

by Whreflections



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dean gets chained up in the bunker, Detox, Established Relationship, First Blade Addiction, M/M, Mark of Cain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 20:50:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1661990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sam walks in on Dean in the aftermath of a torture session he'd undertaken with the First Blade, Dean turns on him.  It's all instinct, Sam knows that, just like he knows that if it happened a hundred times he'd be able to call Dean down from killing him every single one.  </p><p>Dean, he's not sure of any of that, not at all, but almost killing his brother is all the wake up call he needs.  He can't use the blade, and he can't trust himself, so having Sam chain him up in the bunker like the demon he very well may be becoming is the best idea he's got.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mistaken Identity

**Author's Note:**

> The end to this first part kind of feels like an ending...but I promised porn to go with this scenario, and it will happen, and at least one other scene besides. But that will have to be posted tomorrow, or at most Wednesday, cause it's 4 AM and I'm exhausted, lol
> 
> (so in other words, this is like...the initial steps of a return to shippy wincest without the makeup sex. That comes next, :P)

For a bone that looks fairly blunt, it’s amazing how sharp the First Blade feels. 

That shouldn’t be the first thing he notices, it really shouldn’t, but the thought comes anyway, drifting up as the blade’s razor edge nicks open his throat.  It’s shallow still, no more than a line of blood but Sam can feel the power thrumming against his skin.  A twitch of Dean’s wrist, and his veins’ll be spilling everywhere.  Hell, if it’s a hard enough twitch he probably wouldn’t keep his head. 

Sam doesn’t swallow, doesn’t even let himself take another breath.  He whispers, so soft and hoarse it’s barely a stirring of the air.  “Dean, look at me.”

He has words planned for after that, sort of.  Dean doesn’t want to do this; Sam knows that much.  He just caught him and his rage off guard coming into the room unexpected; it can’t be more than that.  It’s on the tip of Sam’s tongue to tell him that, to say he knows this isn’t Dean and if he just backs up they’ll both be ok, but he doesn’t have to get that far. 

The whisper is enough to catch him, Dean’s gaze flickering to meet his just as he asked, and it’s amazing how quick the crazy bleeds out of him.  One second there’s nothing in Dean’s eyes he knows and the next it’s a look of pure horror, his brother damn near stumbling at the speed he backpedals. 

“Sam?”  The way he says it, it’s part wonder part disgust, like he can’t believe it, like he wants and doesn’t want Sam to be more than a mirage.  There’s something wild in his face, his breath quickening as he casts a look up and down Sam’s chest, back up to the wet line Sam can feel beading and spilling over just a touch against his throat.  “ _Jesus_.” 

Sam moves his hand to cover the left side of his neck, half to keep Dean from staring, half because it _is_ stinging.  Still, despite the slickness of blood it’s plain that beneath, the cut is shallow.  It’ll heal easy, maybe even with a light scar rather than a heavy one.  Sam presses his palm against the nick, steps forward with deliberate slowness.  “I’m fine, Dean.  Ok?  It’s not like I’m gonna bleed to death from a scratch.” 

Dean’s throat constricts as he swallows, harsh and quick.  “Don’t, Sam.” 

“Dean—“

“You need to go to the hospital.  Cas can take you.  I gotta…”  Whatever it is, he can’t even get that many words out.  He’s pale, his grip on the blade flexing.  If Sam had to guess, he’s caught somewhere between throwing it and clutching it to the inside of his jacket. 

“Dean, please, just—“

Before he can finish, Dean’s gone.  He steps over the body in the door, kicks it forward enough with a sharp drag of his foot that the door can slam shut with a heavy creak.  Sam, he’s still frozen, blood seeping between his fingers. 

The trip to the hospital is likely inevitable, but he doesn’t have it in him to regret following Dean here.  For the window of just a few seconds, he saw his brother.  Not the mark, just Dean, scared and sick.  His neck might not exactly feel like it, but that’s improvement.  It matters.    

********

At the hospital, they ask questions Sam doesn’t want to answer. 

“How was it this happened, sir?”

“Bar fight.”

“The man who did this—“

“No, I didn’t see his face.  It was dark.  I was a little drunk.”

“You came in sober.”

“I said a _little_ drunk.  I told the nurse everything I know.  It was _dark_.  We wrestled for the knife, I pushed him off and got the hell out.”

“Mr. Walsh, be that as it may, as the origins of the fight are murky we’d like to give you this number; we have a lot of experience with domestic violence and—“

“Keep it.  I told you; bar fight.  If we’re done, I need to get home.  My brother left the bar early; he’ll be wondering what took me so long.” 

It’s irritating, how much it bothers him.  Lying is second nature, always, but this, it feels different, twists different in his chest.  He’s borne marks on his body from Dean more times than he can count, a split lip from a punch thrown in a fight, a bruise sucked starkly dark against his neck.  Both kinds he’s carried openly, physical testaments to his status as a brother, a lover.  This mark, it’s alien, and it feels like neither.  There’s nothing of Dean in it; Sam would know.  He would feel it.  It sounds like madness, like justification, but Sam holds as absolute truth his ability to feel his brother’s presence.  Every time it’s ever been tested, his intuition in regard to Dean has never been wrong. 

Going home isn’t really any easier.  Dean isn’t there; the bunker’s empty to the point of echoing and though Cas would have stayed, it’s Sam that tells him it’s ok to go.  He doesn’t need a chaperone, not with Dean, not even to sit and wait.  Besides, the entire concept that he might need looking after hinges on Dean coming home as a threat.  Sam doesn’t know that he’s coming home at all.  He hasn’t answered a phone call of Sam’s yet, but he leaves voicemails anyway because if he knows his brother(and what else _does_ he know, if not Dean?), he’s listening to them, hoarding them like provisions in his own self-imposed exile. 

_Dean, just left the hospital.  Just took three or four stitches; it’s nothing, ok?  I’m fine.  I’m going home.  I’ll see you there._

_Still can’t believe you left the car.  Just got her back to the bunker.  Look, I know this is fucked, alright, but you need to come talk to me.  We can figure this out._

_I know that wasn’t you.  Dean, I know that, ok?  Just come back.  Please._

Sam wanders in the bunker, aimless.  There’s no longer research on Abaddon to do, and he doesn’t feel like looking for Metatron.  Hell, even if he did, what could he do from here, alone?  It’s not as if he’ll strike out without Dean, not as if his heart could even be in the looking when he has no clue where his brother even is. 

He’s got plenty of time to think on that subject though, too goddamn much of it.  He thinks how before, he’d have called Bobby.  If Dean wasn’t with him(and he wouldn’t have been, not in this frame of mind), they’d have looked together.  Called contacts, searched in mutual unease while Sam made coffee and Bobby tipped whiskey into both mugs. 

He sits at the table in the kitchen, his feet in Dean’s chair, and he thinks how of all the violence that fits into their life together, he isn’t quite sure any of it could be considered domestic. 

********

In the middle of his fourth night back at the bunker, Sam wakes to the heavy creak and slam of the main entrance door.  He jerks up from where he’d fallen asleep, draped across a book by a man of letters named Eldric on the life and travels of Cain.  He’s read the thing a dozen times since Dean took the mark but he keeps coming back to it, searching for any piece of lore he might have missed. 

Sam smoothes crinkled pages, scrubs his hands across his cheeks.  The growth of stubble is rough on his palms, and he realizes he’s only showered once since he got back.  Other than change his bandage, drink coffee, read, and make unanswered phone calls, he hasn’t done much at all. 

His gun rests in the hollow of his back and though he pulls it on reflex as he stands, he replaces it almost as quickly.  He knows the cadence of the steps on the stairs far before he sees Dean for himself.  His clothes are the same, down to the blood of the angels he’d questioned in that rundown office building.  The First Blade is still in his hand; it hangs heavy, like its presence is pulling his arm down in a painful stretch.  It can’t be half as heavy as it looks. 

Sam’s silence is anticipatory.  Dean’s, he can’t read.  It’s ominous or it’s terrified, and Sam wishes he had the answer.  He wishes he had a lot of those, honestly.  Before, there was never a question about Dean he couldn’t answer, not really.  There were some answers he preferred to hear spoken, but little he couldn’t determine on his own. 

Dean’s silence keeps until he’s right at the table.  He goes still a moment, half a heartbeat maybe before he slams the flat of the First Blade onto the wood with a resounding thunk. 

“You need to take this.  And I need you to lock me down.” 

Sam feels like his knees could damn near go weak with relief, but now isn’t the time.  He nods, though Dean isn’t looking, and he reaches out slow to curl his fingers around the leather wrapped hilt.  He can’t imagine what Dean feels when he touches it, though from the looks he’s seen flicker through his eyes it has to be something akin to orgasmic rage.  Sam pulls the blade toward him inch by inch, a careful retraction. 

“I think that’s a good idea, Dean.  I know we may need this for Metatron but right now, I think we need to put it away, lay low here until you—“

“No, I don’t mean just layin’ low; I mean you need to take those chains we kept Crowley in and lock me in the back room.  And before you ask, look at me and tell I’m not dead serious.  If you don’t do both those things, when I want that blade in my hands, I’ll have it.  And then I’ll kill you with it.”  He looks up, finally, and it isn’t the flatness in his voice that’s terrifying, it’s the aching certainty that Sam can see in his eyes.  It’s not true, it can’t be true, but Dean _believes_ it, and that’s enough. 

“No, Dean.  You wouldn’t.”

“You believe whatever you want; I’m not staking your life on the chance.  Are you gonna help me or should I go?” 

Sam shrugs off his outer shirt, wraps the blade in it.  Dean watches his every move.  Already, there’s a little strain in Dean’s neck, in the way he seems to lean toward the table.  Sam clears his throat, and Dean twitches.

“Yeah, ok.  I mean if you think…for now.  If this is what you need, we’ll do it.” 

********

Sam hasn’t put handcuffs on his brother since before hell.  For months after, Sam hadn’t even felt right with too solid of a grip on his wrists.  It wasn’t as if Dean ever asked him not to try again; he never had to.  Sam would likely never know the exact content of the nightmares that still had Dean waking nights here and there with his eyes wet and his chest heaving, his throat raw from a scream he was rarely able to recall once he made it all the way awake.  Sam never asked.  Instead, he did what he could- he held his brother, rubbed his back and murmured to him when Dean wanted comfort, feigned sleep and merely happened to roll closer when Sam could tell he’d rather be left alone. 

Sam might not know the details, but he didn’t need to- he could imagine hell well enough without a guided tour.  Restraint was something he took off the table forever of his own accord.  As so many things pertaining to that time just before the apocalypse, they never discussed it. 

Sam’s fairly sure they won’t be discussing it now either, but he takes it slow all the same.  The iron is cold, still chilled even though he tries to warm it a moment against his palm before sliding the cuffs around Dean’s wrists.  He tightens carefully, gently, his thumb sliding underneath to keep the cuffs just a little loose. 

“Tighter, Sam.”

In this frame of mind, he knows Dean would have him go until he’s cutting skin.  As a comprise, Sam clicks them in just a touch.  Dean’s ankles are already shackled to the floor, though Sam hadn’t linked it to his hands.  There was only so far he’d go with this.  The cuff that should go around his neck lies open, on the ground and unattached.  Dean’s eyes are locked on it, but it’s not an option, not for a second.  What they’ve done already, that’s more than enough. 

“I’m not putting than on you; you can forget it.  This’ll hold you until we can get a better handle on this.  That’s all we need.”  Dean’s laughter is short, cutting.  He’s not sure he wants to know, but he can’t resist asking.  “What?”

“Yeah, you’re right.  Chains should hold.  I was just thinking though, the trap itself might have been enough.”

He doubts Dean meant it as a stab at him, just at himself, but it cuts with a deep hurt that Sam can feel through to his lungs.  He takes a few breaths, but he can’t quite make them steady. 

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yeah?  Sure, why not.” 

“You don’t; you can’t.  You’re not…the mark’s done something to you, I’ll give you that, but you’re not one of them, Dean.  You’re human.  We’ll figure this out.”

Dean sits down in the chair with a clink and rattle, his head bowed.  “You should go upstairs.  Get some sleep; you look like shit.”

Sam retreats only enough to sit on the desk to Dean’s right.  “I’m good here.”

Another laugh, cold and short and then Dean’s eyes are on him with all the whip quickness of a snake.  It makes his heartbeat quicken in a way that’s more fear than the desire he’d like to call it and he hates it, he hates it.  “Are you?  I’m not so sure.  See, I made a couple kills before I came here, wanted to be steady enough to make sure I could turn myself in before I needed that next hit but the time I get between those is gettin’ slimmer all the time.  I don’t think it’s gonna be very long before I try to bust out of here.   You don’t need to be here for that.” 

“Yeah, Dean, I do.” 

“Did you miss the part where I said I killed two people?”

“No, but we’ll talk about it when this is over.” 

“And when’s that gonna be, Sam?  You got a timeline on this?”  He says every word like an arrow, sharp tipped.  It’s probably true that there’s something fucked in the fact that it should be harder to stay, and still it’d be worse to go.  Probably, but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t give one goddamn.  Dean pushes out of fear, and he pushes back until he calls Dean’s bluff.  This dance is an old one; he knows every step.

Sam hops down from the table, stalks back right up into Dean’s space, close enough to feel his brother’s heat.  It’s not often Sam’s close to him these days but every time he’s too hot, like there’s a furnace burning under his skin and God, it’s terrifying; terrifying, but he doesn’t back away. 

“You’re right.  No timeline.  So I need to go get a few things.  Won’t take long.” 

*********

Dean is the nester, not Sam, but that doesn’t mean Sam hasn’t been paying attention.  Everything he’s learned about caretaking he gleaned from the best source, and he puts it to use, makes a list of everything Dean would have brought into the panic room with them if it had been even remotely advisable to seal them both up in there together.

A bed for one, though the panic room came equipped.  Beer, advisable or not.  Food, though Sam can skimp a little there because the kitchen isn’t too terribly far, and he’d rather use the cooler for the beer than sandwiches.  Besides, Dean hates when the bread gets soggy.  Blankets.  Cards. 

He holds a flask of holy water in his hands for five minutes before he puts it down, unsure what’s worse- the shame of having it occur to him that he might need it or the fear that if he tried Dean’s skin would flash and bubble like a bad sunburn. 

It only takes him a little over a half hour, and the bed’s the hardest thing.  He drags a twin mattress out of a spare room, hauling it behind him and studiously ignoring the large stain on one side that looks suspiciously like blood.  He’ll lay that side down to the floor, throw a blanket across the top.  Hell, they’ve probably slept on worse at a dozen motels.  (For a moment, the realization hurts.  _They_ probably won’t be sleeping on this one at all.) 

By the time he gets back, it’s clear even a half hour was too long.  Dean’s on the ground, chains stretched to the limit as he claws at the concrete.  The mark on his arm glows a brilliant orange, seems to singe the grey floor black wherever it touches.  Sam’s breath catches, frozen on a half second of inaction before he’s dropping everything and running to where his brother struggles, right at the edge of his chains. 

“Dean, Dean, hey, listen to me—“

Dean snarls; there’s no other word for it.  His hands scrabble at the floor, spreading too wide in his efforts to find purchase.  His wrists are bleeding freely, and Sam doesn’t think of the consequences of grabbing his hands, doesn’t think of anything at all other than stopping his brother’s pain.  He reaches, but Dean’s hands latch onto his wrists rather than his fingers, yanks Sam off balance far enough that he can switch his grip and grab the front of Sam’s shirt. 

“ _Dean_!”  Dean snaps still, like he’s been paused though his grip remains rigid as a mad dog.  Sam’s hands fist in Dean’s shirt mirroring him, balancing.  Dean’s only movements are the heave of his chest, the barely perceptible muscle tremor Sam can see in the arm that bears the mark.  Sam hauls him just a little closer, as close as Dean’s stiff arms will allow.  “It’s ok, Dean.  It’s ok.  I’m right here.” 

“I could kill you.  I don’t need the blade.”  His voice is full of grit and heat and he should run, he should pull back while Dean is still.  He slides his hand up until it rests at the back of Dean’s neck, feels sweat and burning skin beneath his palm. 

“I know.  But I also know you, Dean.  You never would.  You wouldn’t kill me years ago when I begged you to.  You’re not gonna kill me now.” 

“No?”

“No.  You’re not.  You can’t.”  There’s something frantic in Dean’s eyes, something that isn’t the clawing desperation of the junkie or the fear of the tortured but both, all at once.  Sam recognizes the components; he may not fully understand, but he knows, he _knows_.  His own eyes well up, and he blinks the tears away.  Later.  If he’s going to lose it over this, he can do it later.  “Like I said, I know you.  You’re my brother.  No matter what this thing is, what it’s done to you, that doesn’t change.  It can’t take that away from you, Dean.  Nothing can.  So you look at me, and tell the truth- are you gonna kill me?  Or are you gonna let me help you?” 

His eyes flicker, indecision and hurt, and he pushes Sam back so fast and hard that Sam has no chance of hanging on.  At the best of times, his only slight advantage over Dean in any fight mock or real is his height; with the mark amping Dean up that tiny bonus gets him exactly nowhere.  Sam hits the shelves hard enough to take his breath, a sharp quick pain before he can sit up gasping, wincing.

Dean watches him, flexes his arms and digs the cuffs in a little tighter.  “Get out of here, Sam.”

Sam shakes his head.  “No.”

“I said get the _hell out_!”  His rage is blinding, terrifying, enough to make Sam flinch.  But still, he’s already getting up, already going back instead of walking away. 

“And I said no.”  It’s marginally easier this time to catch Dean’s arms, twist them just a little so he can at least postpone the moment before Dean’s hands wrap around the collar of his shirt.  “I’m not leaving you.  Not like this.” 

“Crazy son of a bitch.”

“Yeah, maybe.  So are you.” 

Dean grabs hold, but Sam twists to grab the chain and they go down this time, crashing to floor in a pile of limbs and iron and blood.  They wrestle, hard and bitter but it’s plain that Dean is half trying, reserving most of his venom for himself, slicing the marks on his arms deeper in his struggles every chance he gets.  There’s a dozen moments he could have looped that chain Sam didn’t secure around his neck and choked the life out of him but he doesn’t, he doesn’t even try, and every time he doesn’t, Sam breathes a little easier. 

He never thought for a moment he was wrong, but it’s still nice to be proved right. 

They fight until Dean goes limp, his head knocking back against the concrete as he pants.  He looks spent, and Sam aches to dip his head enough to kiss the long line of his throat.  It’s too familiar, lying half on top of him like this, their breathing heavy, Dean’s eyes fluttering shut.  The thought hurts enough that the desire to try leaves him.  He disengages instead, extracting himself from his brother enough that he can for a moment lean his forehead on his palm and breathe.  They need water, and Dean’s wrists need attention.  Aside from a painful stretch in his neck that could mean his stitches are leaking and a spot on the back of his head that feels suspiciously wet, Sam’s fairly sure he came out of this almost unscathed.  Well, by his definition, at least.  The bruises he can already feel are likely to last weeks. 

“You—“  Dean pauses, maybe to catch his breath, maybe just to decide.  “—are fucking insane.”

“You sound better.”  He can’t resist it, because Dean _does_ , undeniably.  There’s something about the lack of a damn near physical barb in every word that’s just so heartening he has to mention it.  “Less—“

“Homicidal rage?  Yeah, I think that’s passed for the time being. “

“Good.”  Sam strokes the tip of his fingers down the chains, pauses to rub his thumb across a link slick with his brother’s blood.  “Sit up.  I’ll get some water and the first aid kit.”

Dean doesn’t speak again until after Sam’s poured whiskey over his wrists, tipped a sip first into Dean’s mouth and then his own.  Sam’s dabbing blood away with sterile gauze, careful, murmuring words that aren’t words every time he feels Dean wince.

“Seriously, Sam, you should have left.  I could’ve—“

“If you say you could’ve killed me one more time, I’m gonna actually kick your ass.”

“Like to see you try.”  It should be teasing, familiar, warming, but it falls flat.  Dean can’t put enough heart into it, not yet.  “I went full on Cujo on you not ten minutes ago, and we’re just gonna sit here, patch me up like nothing happened?  Why are you doing this?” 

There are dozen answers, a half dozen more angry retorts because it _hurts_ that Dean would ask, even though it shouldn’t, not after the year they’ve had.  Sam presses a little too hard with the gauze, feels blood well against his fingers, the shift beneath as Dean tries not to flinch away. 

Sam doesn’t look up.  “You know why.”  He mumbles, and it’s not the answer he should give, not even the answer he _wants_ to give, but it’s too soon into this for him to talk to Dean with any proper expectations.  Whatever Dean may think, he honestly _hasn’t_ missed the fact that Dean’s just this side of feral.  If they’re going to talk, and _God_ they need to, he doesn’t want it to be like this, hazy and half forgotten.  If they’re going to talk, Dean has to be present, properly, at least 90%.  Right now, he looks like he’s maybe up to 70, 80 at a stretch. 

Sam rubs the heel of his brother’s palm with this thumb, careful and light.  “Turn your hands over.  I need to see the back.” 

*********

Seeing Dean through the moments he damn near rips himself to pieces trying to get out, that’s hard, but the aftermath is always harder.  It’s something in his exhausted sprawl, the lingering panic that never seems to quite leave Dean’s eyes.  Two days in, and though he’s babbled and raged here and there that he has to kill, he _has_ to, he still hasn’t.  If Sam’s count is right, those episodes seem to be getting just a little farther apart.  That’s a point in their favor, but to weight against it, Dean hasn’t slept in at least those two days.  Sam’s starting to suspect it’s been a hell of a lot longer than that. 

He hates that he doesn’t know, that Dean’s been across the hall on the other side of two doors rather than right next to  him, separated from him at most be a few inches and a sheet.  If they hadn’t fucked things up so royally between the two of them, they might could have staved off some of the worst of this mess.  Maybe, maybe not.  It’s all water over the dam now, pointless, and still in his mind when things go quiet in that back room, Sam sits and thinks, rewinds and watches it spill over. 

They’re in the aftermath of a not so bad episode when Sam decides it’s actually time they talked.  He drains the last of his beer, taps the bottle against the inside of his knee for a moment while he gathers himself, and then he begins.

“I lied.” 

“About what?”  Dean’s voice is flat, gruff and measured, so careful it could hurt if Sam let it.  The admission of a lie doesn’t startle him; all he’s interested in are the details.  Once upon a time, that wouldn’t have true, but Sam hardly has the right to get righteous about it now.  They’ve lied to each other enough to fill libraries, and it won’t stop here; he’s more than smart enough to know that. 

Sam clears his throat.  “What I said about the choice I’d have made, what I’d have done about Gadreel if you were in that hospital.”  He has Dean’s attention now; he can feel it.  The air between them is charged with it, enough that he knows that if he looked up, his brother’s eyes would be on him.  He doesn’t.   If he looks Dean in the eye, he might not finish, and he’s got to get this out.  “It’s no excuse but I was furious.  I mean, you helped this guy take over and you knew nothing about him, and one of the first things I learn about this whole thing is the memory of killing Kevin and I…you know what I kept thinking, those days you were gone?  I kept remembering Lucifer, how I was awake in there watching him beat the shit out of you, knowing if I failed, he could kill you slow and make me watch every last second.” 

He takes a breath, quick and deep, pushes on before Dean can stop him.  “I mean, he was with you every second, in bed with you every night; he could have killed you a hundred times and if he’d taken any one of those chances I’d be left with that forever, seeing you die at my hands, Dean I…I would have risked my life on that, if it was you.  So I get it, I do.  But I couldn’t take you risking yours for me, not again.  So when you said I’d have done the same thing, you were right.  Maybe I had no right to be mad at you, but I’m not perfect, Dean.  I’m not sorry I was pissed, cause that was crazy, what you did.  But I’m sorry I lied.  And I need you to know that whatever I have to do to fix this?”  Now, now he could look at Dean because these last words he had planned, they came easy.  They always had.  “I’ll do it.  I’m not gonna let you go.” 

Dean’s studying the rim of his beer like it’ll give him answers.  He swipes his thumb across it, tilts the bottle and swirls the dregs at the bottom.  “I guess I hoped that part had gone to Cas with the rest of the cage match.”  He sits forward, chains clinking against the top of the table.  “The whole Lucifer thing, I mean.”

“Wish it had.”

“Hey, you were possessed, Sammy.”  _Sammy._   The effect on him is instantaneous, the way it loosens his nerves and tightens his chest all at once.  Asked to give the name that most feels like himself, that’d be the one Sam would chose, but only in Dean’s voice, only like this.  What that says about him could probably be the subject of someone’s friggin psych dissertation but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care at all.  “That wasn’t you, man.  You can’t blame yourself for that.” 

Because he called Sam by name, because he said his peace and Dean didn’t brush it off, reaching for his brother’s hand suddenly seems a safe enough bet.  The odds still aren’t the best but he goes for it, closes his hand around Dean’s fingers and holds his breath, waits to be pushed away.  It’s a half win, in the end.  Dean doesn’t hold on, but he doesn’t pull away, either.  He stays, like he’s got a butterfly perched on his hand and he can’t move, can’t spook it.  Someday when this is over, maybe Sam’ll point out how insane it is that nine years down the road from that night at Stanford, Dean’s still waiting for Sam to run and Sam’s still waiting for Dean to tell him to go.  The details change; the core remains. 

“You can’t blame yourself either, Dean.”

“That was my hand that put the blade to your throat, Sam; no one in here but me.” 

“Still not you.  You weren’t yourself.  And you didn’t do it.  You stopped.”

“Yeah, but it was a close thing.  I could have—“

“But you didn’t.  You never would.  You may not believe me now, and…that’s ok; you’re still messed up, I know that.  But I’ll remind you until you believe it.  I know you, better than anyone.  I know what you’re capable of, Dean, and killing me isn’t on that list.  It never could be.  And I’m not goin’ anywhere.” 

The chain clinks, and Dean’s hand turns over, returning his grip.  it’s tight, painful even, but it’s glorious, it’s perfect, and Sam holds on until his knuckles go white. 


End file.
